


Progressive Displacement

by GatewayGirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, HP: EWE, M/M, Post-War, universe hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-30
Updated: 2011-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-21 23:31:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GatewayGirl/pseuds/GatewayGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry didn't mean the wish that way. From his point of view, it hadn't even worked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On Being Someone Else

**Author's Note:**

> **Additional warnings:** Multiple AUs, non-explicit mentions of rape  
>  **Canon Compliancy:** Half-way through DH for Harry prime.  
>  **Author's Note:** I think this started because I had a plot bunny for Harry One (the first alternate Harry), and then realized I couldn't stand him for an entire story. That got me thinking about other AU Harrys (Harries?) I could do....  
>  Thanks to sociofemme for beta-reading (and for putting up with the teasers of unfinished versions) and calanthe for beta and Britpicking.

Harry hated Azkaban. Even now, years after their departure, the gloom of Dementors clung to it like the mold he could see when the guard's swinging lantern splashed light on the base of the wall. Their power for sapping will was gone, however, and the darkness that remained just made him angry.

They turned into a corridor with lit torches -- an improvement, despite the thin haze of smoke that rose to a fog at the ceiling. Fresher air, bone-chillingly cold, cut in through a narrow window. Harry imagined choosing between the two in selecting a corner of a cell. That made him angrier.

"Here he is," the guard said, stopping by a door. "Malfoy, D., awaiting trial."

"Open the door," Harry ground out between clenched teeth, and a thin, huddled figure turned his head with the quickness of panic.

"Potter?" Despite the alarm in his first response, his voice rose with guarded hope, and he stumbled to his feet, still holding his blanket tightly around his shoulders.

"Yes," Harry said, and then, exasperated, added, "and no, I didn't know you were in prison! Why would I be asking you out for a drink if I knew that?" He beckoned Draco towards the opening door. "Come on. Kingsley's willing to let you out on my parole. I need you to promise you won't go anywhere without my permission, you won't do anything illegal, and you'll show up for your trial."

Draco's chin lifted in a reassuringly familiar manner, though his gaunt cheeks were streaked with dirt, and the eyes above them dark with lack of sleep. "Is that all?"

Harry grinned at the sarcasm. "Yes. But in return, I'll protect you and do my best to see to it that you _and_ your mother get your freedom, and at least some of your assets back."

"Oh." The cynical amusement on Draco's face turned to something less certain. "I suppose asking the same for my father would be too much?"

"Yes." Harry stepped into the open doorway, so he was face to face with his former nemesis. "I can honestly say I don't think you and she deserve this. I can't say that about him."

"Honestly," Draco amended mockingly.

"Right. Now do you promise or not?"

Draco's eyes closed for a moment. "Oh, I promise, Potter," he answered, his voice trembling with feeling. "I'll stay where you tell me to, I'll go meekly to my trial, and I won't do anything illegal in between."

"Good enough," Harry said. "Come on. Let's get you checked out, and you can come and stay at my flat, for now."

 

Back at Harry's place, Draco showered, and when Harry showed him a bed, smiled like he had gone to paradise, crawled into it, and fell asleep. Harry avoided temptation by leaving the room. It was still short of noon, but he doubted prisoners in Azkaban had much of a sense of time, and that bed was doubtless the most comfortable place that Draco had been in months.

When it was late enough, he ordered take-away from his favorite curry place, and put it under stasis charms. When Draco woke, he had warm food and a chilled white Bordeaux wine waiting.

Draco looked uncertain when he stopped at the end of the hallway. Harry had left him an assortment of clothing, expecting he would choose the robes. Instead, he was wearing too-short sweatpants and a blue oxford shirt with the tails untucked and the top button undone. His hair was clean from the shower, but ragged from lack of care. It fell in his face when he glanced down, and he had to shake it back a little when he caught himself and raised his chin again. Altogether, he looked stunning, and only half familiar.

"Hi," Harry said. "I know you just woke up, but it's evening. Is curry okay? I have tikka masala, and biryani, and three kinds of bread. Oh," he added casually, "and a decent wine." _Which might just happen to be your favorite for everyday drinking._

Slowly, Draco stepped forward. "You can't imagine how strange this is," he said. He swallowed. Harry thought his eyes looked suspiciously bright. "I mean, yes, thank you, that sounds lovely."

He swallowed again, and Harry gestured for him to join him on the sofa. It was August, but the night was cool enough for a fire, and Harry encouraged the flames with a flick of his wand.

"Here," he said, nudging a plate and flatware down the coffee table, closer to the far end of the sofa, where Draco had sat. He took some rice and then passed Draco the foil container. "Not classy, I'm afraid, but good."

Draco scooped out the rice, and the chicken with its burnt orange sauce, and when Harry held out a piece of paratha, he tore a piece off of it. He ate a bite of everything, and then, closing his eyes, stopped and breathed. When he opened them again, he looked straight down the length of the sofa at Harry.

"You know those stories in the Arabian Nights?" he said. "Ones in which someone is very rich, and they lose all their money, and then someone invites them to a feast, and everything is more delicious than they remembered?" Tears welled in his eyes, but his voice wavered only slightly before he caught it, swallowed, and continued with careful steadiness. "I feel like that. Thank you."

He covered for the tears by brushing back his hair in an unbelievably wide stroke of his hand, and Harry, in a surge of protective affection, pretended to be too absorbed in opening the wine to notice.

"Here," he said, passing down a glass. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't know you were in prison. I've been busy with my godson, and Kingsley's campaign, and more funerals than anyone should need to attend in a lifetime."

"Weren't my letters censored?"

Harry snorted. "No one touches my mail," he said. "Not even Azkaban guards. I expect they looked, but no -- nothing was ever blacked out."

"But...." Draco twisted the soft bread in his hands -- "why correspond with me? If it wasn't for.... I suppose I thought of it as closure."

"Ah." Harry had wondered about Draco's restrained litany of apology and forgiveness. It made a little more sense that way. Had he made similar declarations in the last world? "Well, how would you feel about a long story? It's in keeping with the Arabian Nights theme, I think." Draco hadn't touched his wine, yet, but Harry lifted his. He smiled. "Oh, my guest!" he proclaimed. "Although your question appears simple, the answer is a tale of marvels to fill a dozen nights! For many places have I been, full against my will, due to but a moment of careless temper!"

Draco snorted. "I admit," he said, in almost his old drawl, "that I am intrigued. Might I trouble you, my illustrious host, to tell me of your marvelous adventures, and how they might concern me?"

Harry laughed. "As you probably know," he said, in something closer to his usual manner, "I spent much of last winter as a refugee, living in a tent with Hermione and Ron -- and later just Hermione -- hiding from Voldemort's forces. During that time, Godric Gryffindor's sword appeared just when I needed it -- delivered by Snape, I later discovered -- and was of some use."

"I'd heard something about it," Draco admitted, "but not the details."

Harry waved that off. "Another tale for another night, I think. Anyway, it was all rather horrible. At one point, I was holding the sword -- I'd just used it to destroy something -- and Hermione said something about Ron, and we understood, by then, why he'd left us, but knowing what had happened didn't fix anything, and I was _miserable_.

"So I took this bloody sword -- Godric Gryffindor's sword -- and I swung it into a tree _screaming_ that I wished I had never heard of Horcruxes. And this naked girl shot out of the tree -- she was like a ghost, except when she passed through me, it was _warm_. And everything went this delicious, slow, summer green, which slowly became darker and darker, until I ... I _clicked_ into place in a warm, soft bed, somewhere with no light at all."

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

The darkening green was dreamlike, soothing. Warmth folded lovingly around him until with a sudden, brief displacement, as if he and all the world had fallen a few inches, Harry jolted awake, elsewhere.

He was in total darkness, and certain, somehow, that he was inside a real building. Warm blankets covered him, and a weight rested on part of his hip. He reached up, felt flesh, and, gasping, jerked away.

"Harry," said a sleepy, soothing voice, as Harry groped for his wand. It wasn't near; he was naked -- panic rose in him. _Where am I? Who's with me? Where are my clothes?_ "Calm down." The hand returned to stroke down his side. _I am naked in bed with someone -- a man, from that voice._ Harry forced himself not to thrash loose of the covers and the touch. What had happened? He had wished he'd never heard of Horcruxes, and the naked girl -- a nymph? No, wasn't it dryads that lived in trees? She had flowed out and _through_ him. He still remembered Horcruxes, though.

"It was only a dream," the voice continued, and that was a long enough utterance that Harry recognized the aristocratic drawl, although he'd certainly never heard it with that reassuring tone, before.

"Malfoy?"

"Oh, Merlin!" His bedmate sighed. "Wake _up_ , Harry. You know me."

"I...." Harry's voice caught in his throat. He wanted to protest that he didn't know Malfoy; not to be reassured by his presence, and certainly not to be lying with him in this intimate manner, which he had never done with _anyone_. But he needed to work out where he was and what was going on before he stumbled into something dangerous. Could the wish have mistakenly sent him back to Hogwarts? But he was _in bed_ with Malfoy, who was acting like this was all _normal_.

"Where am I?" he tried, with honest confusion and assumed wooziness.

A warm body curled up against his, one leg -- also bare -- overlaying his own. Something soft -- lips? -- brushed along his cheek.

"In your own bed, in Slytherin," Malfoy answered, his voice still gentle. "Do you need a little distraction?"

Harry was too shocked to answer. Slytherin? He didn't notice the hand trailing down his body until it met his cock like a zap of electrical current. Taken by surprise, his body moved. It might have been a jump if he had been standing, but with Malfoy's leg over him, it just pushed his body into the touch. In the darkness, Malfoy laughed low and soft.

"Well, it seems so," he said smugly.

Harry squirmed back up the bed, alarmed, but Malfoy didn't try to follow him. Instead he moved away. At least, Harry _thought_ he was moving away until something closed wetly around the head of his cock.

"Ah!"

Malfoy apparently took Harry's startled cry as encouragement, because he moaned happily and started to suck. Harry was immobilized by the unfamiliar pleasure.

 "Oh." With what of his brain still worked, he remembered that he needed to act like this was normal. That didn't seem as burdensome as it ought to be. " _Draco_ ," he said daringly, and a hand stroked up his thigh and settled at his hip, one finger stroking over the dip above the bone. For some reason, this made everything more intense, and more of his thoughts stilled. He knew -- _knew_ \-- that if he reached down, and trailed his fingers up Draco's neck and through his hair, until he was tugging gently at the locks of the crown, that Draco would whine with lust, and he wanted to hear that sound.

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

"I see," Draco said coolly. "Do I have extra duties to stay out of prison?"

"Hush," Harry said, but he didn't take offence. He'd known when he had started the story that it might come across that way. "I gave you all my terms in Azkaban, I promise. I wouldn't harp on the sex, but-- Well, it mattered. I'd stop ... stop _thinking_ , and when that happened, then I was more the person who should have been there -- Harry One, let's call him." Harry hesitated. "Muggles have found that memory is physical, you know. It's actually part of the _stuff_ in the brain, somehow. I think I had my memories magically, and _his_ memories physically, but I could only get to his when I -- really, completely myself -- stopped thinking."

Draco nodded. He tore another piece off the paratha. "That makes sense. It was his body, but your soul. _Was_ it his body, though?"

"Not entirely." Harry bit his lip, remembering how frightening it was to discover that in the light of day. "It seemed to be a combination. I was taller there, and not as skinny, but...." He held his hand out. "This scar. I saw it the next morning, although it was fainter. I cast a glamour while Draco was in the loo. I doubt a Slytherin would have that."

Draco examined the scar. "'I must not tell lies?'" he read with a sneer of disgust. "Did you do that to yourself?"

Harry felt his face twist in wry humor. "Not willingly. Umbridge made me write lines."

Draco's eyes widened. "With a Blood Quill?"

"Because I said Voldemort was back."

Draco snorted. "Oh, that! No, a Slytherin wouldn't get into that situation." Draco smirked. "But if we were really lovers, I think I would notice more subtle differences." He straightened from where he had leaned back against the sofa cushions. "That is, I expect my counterpart -- Draco One? -- would."

"Oh yes. He did."

"Your complete lack of subtlety, perhaps?"

Harry laughed uncomfortably. "My complete lack of experience."

Draco's eyebrows shot up. "Complete?"

"Well, I knew how to kiss. Not that I'd done even that with another man."

Draco snorted.

"Well then," he suggested, reaching for the wine, "do tell me more about the sex."

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

After Harry climaxed, in an explosion of pleasure like nothing else in his experience, Draco crawled up his body and kissed him deeply. With a strange, possessive excitement, Harry licked his taste from Draco's mouth, and when Draco rubbed his cock against the back of Harry's hand, Harry took the cue and began to pull on it with little hesitation. It felt different from touching himself, but Draco was close to his own climax, and Harry didn't have to work out what to do next; that was enough. They kissed back into stillness and fell asleep in a tangle.

 

Harry woke to a slap on his bare hip.

"Better get a move on, prince!" Malfoy said brightly, as he stepped out of range. He was already dressed, but his hair was still tousled. Between that and his smile, he looked like a stranger. "Crabbe and Goyle may start devouring firsties if you make them wait too much longer for breakfast." With that, he tripped away, leaving Harry gawking behind him.

Rubbing his eyes, Harry sat up. He was in a Slytherin bed -- one with rumpled and skewed bedclothes, he noticed, his face heating as he remembered the night before. The next bed over appeared not to have been touched. Was it cheating if you were in another world? he wondered. Well, he supposed that it wasn't anyway, since he had technically broken up with Ginny, but would she think it was? He wouldn't be angry if she found someone else, in theory -- part of why he had broken up with her was so she could live while he was gone -- but she hadn't said that about him. On the other hand, this was _war_ , right? He couldn't tell Malfoy he didn't belong here, when that would leave him in the hands of enemies.

Everyone else seemed to have left the room, fortunately. Harry found a wand on the table beside the bed, and lifted it. It had a bright, wicked feel to it, like an eager knife, but when he waved it, sparks shot to the ceiling. Some of them still hung there as he got up and went around the curtains to the wardrobe set at the foot of bed. The brass plaque on the door was long and bright. Etched into it was the name "Harry J. P. Prince". He stared at it, his stomach twisting.

"Prince," he muttered. "Only know one of those." In nervous twitches, he opened the door and found neatly creased dark trousers hanging beside white and silver-grey dress shirts and black school robes. A few brighter things were pushed to one side. On the shelf under the trousers was a shiny pair of low black boots with thin laces, and on the door, Slytherin ties and scarves hung softly next to stiff leather belts in black and grey. Shuddering, Harry took enough for an outfit and sat on the bed to dress.

While he was drawing on clothes, an explanation for the name occurred to him. Perhaps he was actually in the body of another person, someone who didn't exist in his world. That would explain how he could be related to Snape, and also why he had reacted so strongly to Malfoy. It wasn't just that Malfoy was talented; it was probably that he was in the body of someone who was gay, so really, nothing he did could count. Nodding to himself, Harry stood and found that the trousers were slightly big at the waist, and pooled slightly over the boots, but only slightly. _Definitely someone else, then._ He tucked the shirt in and added a belt, for appearances. Knotting a Slytherin tie shouldn't have been any different than knotting a Gryffindor one, but the green flashed oddly in his vision, and his hands shook. He sat for a moment to breathe and look at them, and it was then that he saw the scar. _I must not tell lies._

When Malfoy returned, a minute later, Harry was just pulling on his robes.

"Honestly!" Malfoy exclaimed. "Your hair! Go and freshen up. Everyone knows what we do all night; there's no need to _look_ like it." With a smirk, he pushed Harry towards the door he had just come out of.

Harry took in the toilet and the bath, but what he was looking for was the mirror. It was on the back of the door. A glance was enough to dissolve any residue of hope he was possessing some Snape cousin, and the curse scar had come with him. He didn't look exactly the same -- a bit less thin, perhaps, although certainly not too heavy, and a bit taller -- but he still looked like James Potter's son. His eyes were still green, and the scar on his forehead, while not at all irritated, was blatantly there. He made quick work of using the loo, but he had to look at his reflection again to neaten his hair. Straightening his green and silver tie was even more disturbing when he could see his own face above it. After a quick, bracing breath, he emerged. Malfoy thrust a school bag in his arms and they were off through the Slytherin common room, where Crabbe and Goyle fell into step behind them, and then it was up -- up! -- to breakfast in the Great Hall.

Walking up stairs, even if from the dungeons, was a familiar activity, and Harry's mind started to put things together as he climbed. He had to be in some alternate timeline, in the life of some poor sod who probably _didn't_ know what Horcruxes were -- not that it helped _him_ at all. If he was a Slytherin and sleeping with Malfoy, and had Snape's mother's last name, he couldn't count on anything about this world. He was going to have to listen carefully and react as little as possible until he discovered how to get home. Fortunately, Malfoy didn't seem to expect him to be chatty. Probably he wasn't a morning person in this world either.

Once they had sat down and there was food on his plate, Harry sat and listened to the conversations -- mostly about school work -- and tried to pay attention, but he couldn't keep from looking at the Gryffindor table. Ginny was laughing with some sixth-year boy. Hermione was there -- and Ron, with his arm around her shoulders. Ron looked up, and, by chance, their eyes met. Ron scowled and flashed an obscene gesture at him, and Harry quickly looked away.

"Weasley is such a vulgar excuse for a wizard," Malfoy drawled. He nudged Harry. "Though I admit it is rather darling the way he protects the Mudblood -- like a six-year-old with a pet beetle."

Harry thought that he was expected to laugh, but he couldn't manage it. He forced a sickly smile and stuffed some toast into his mouth to obscure his dismay.

 

Lessons were horrible. Transfiguration was all about things that he had never studied. That made sense, of course -- this was a seventh-year class -- but it was humiliating, and Malfoy was looking at him oddly by the end of it. Worse yet, it was still taught by Professor McGonagall, who regarded him with cool contempt even before he started making mistakes. ("If you would kindly do the reading tonight, Mr. Prince?") After that, they went to Potions. Harry had expected Snape, but the class was taught by Slughorn, and Harry managed to bluff his way through it by watching Malfoy closely.

"You're a bit off, today," Malfoy said, as they made their way up to lunch. Harry shrugged.

"I didn't get much sleep," he said blandly, and as he had hoped, Malfoy sniggered.

While dishes were appearing, Harry looked up at the high table. Snape was there. It took a moment before Harry realized what was wrong; Snape was in the headmaster's seat. Maybe some things about this world were like his own. Though now that he thought about it, he hadn't heard anyone mention Voldemort, by any of his titles. He wished he had thought to look at the _Daily Prophet_ , that morning, rather than setting it aside in favor of listening to conversations. The paper would have had hints to the current state of the wizarding world. He was starting to think he might need to claim memory damage. Of course, that wouldn't help if Snape looked in his head, as he well might. _It isn't as if I can stop him_ , Harry thought bitterly.

After lunch, they had Defense Against the Dark Arts, which wasn't too bad. Harry didn't know the professor, of course, but he was perfectly comfortable with the sort of battle hexes under discussion. Better yet, no one seemed to find his proficiency worthy of comment. Charms was a little more difficult, but not as incomprehensible as Transfiguration.

In the afternoon, they went back to the Slytherin dormitory, where a wave of Malfoy's hand sent the other seventh-year students scattering to suddenly remembered study sessions. Malfoy put a mild hex on the door and turned back to Harry.

"Enough of this school crap," he said, prowling forward. "You were too sleepy, last night. I want a fuck."

Arousal and panic collided in Harry's mind. He would have no idea what to do. Surely Malfoy would be able to tell. "I-- I'm not feeling well," he protested.

Malfoy stared. "You-- Do you need to go to the hospital wing?"

He looked utterly bewildered. Harry wondered if his counterpart was always up for it, or if, conversely, this was an unusual offer from Malfoy and one he was expected to jump at. For that matter, which end of the stick, as it were, was he expected to be on? A half-second's thought was enough to convince him that it didn't matter; he didn't want to attempt either with someone who didn't know it was his first time.

_And I sort of have a girlfriend_ , he thought belatedly.

"Please no," he said. "I ... I mean, something's wrong, but I think-- I think it may work out."

Malfoy leaned back against his bed. "Explain," he said.

"I think I've been cursed," Harry said. Certainly he must have enemies here, even if they weren't the same ones? "I don't exactly remember things."

"Like your lessons?"

"Right. But I'm close. I know who the professors are. I know who you are, although I can't--" He spoke through Malfoy's gasp -- "I couldn't tell you an actual story about us; I just have a general sense of it. And I don't remember any sex other than last night."

He stopped, not bothering to hide his trepidation as he looked up to meet Malfoy's eyes. That was right, wasn't it? If he'd truly been through that sort of curse, he would be feeling just as vulnerable as he actually did, right now.

"Merlin!" Malfoy exclaimed. "We should talk to your father-- No, wait." For a moment, he just stood, bending back his fingers as he thought, while Harry wondered frantically who Malfoy meant.

"Perhaps one of those girls was a witch," Malfoy said. "Do you remember the girls? Saturday night?"

Harry shook his head.

"Do you remember leaving the grounds?"

"No." Harry bit his lip. "Do we often?"

"Yes," Malfoy said, his tension abating slightly. "And you knew that, really, and you knew it was _us_ , so the memory block can't be that deep. On Saturday night, you were feeling edgy. You do, sometimes. So we went to a Muggle town, and found two girls who were out walking together, and you took them for ... you know, sport."

Harry felt his blood run cold. He wasn't sure if the euphemism was for sex or murder or something else, but it was clearly something horrible.

"Muggles," he said, trying to piece things together. He was Malfoy's friend -- no, _lover_ \-- and apparently didn't mind Hermione being compared to an insect -- what was he like, here?

"Well, so it appeared," Malfoy continued, "but one of them looked rather foreign, and if she was Muggleborn and not yet in Britain when she turned eleven, she may never have been detected. Even trained witches can manifest accidental magic when taken by force, and if she didn--"

"I _raped a witch_?" Harry asked incredulously.

"Well, you wouldn't have if you'd _known_ she was a witch, of course," Malfoy said soothingly. "And any _real_ witch would know that. It's the right sort of curse, though, isn't it? I mean, if you remember some of your lessons, and less about your usual companion, and nothing at all about sex?"

"I...." Harry swallowed hard. He had seen himself in the mirror, and he seemed to be almost the same person. But somehow, here, he had taken to assaulting Muggle girls for kicks .... with Malfoy as a voyeur, it seemed.

"So you're right about waiting," Malfoy continued, nodding decisively to himself. "Your father will scold about the potential scandal. Let's see what comes back on its own, first. You should be able to shake off a curse from an untrained Mudblood." He stepped closer, his face lighting with a seductive charm. "The first technique, of course, is to immerse yourself in familiar, but forgotten, activities."

"Er, I--"

"Oh, don't worry," Malfoy soothed. "You can trust me; you must know _that_ much. And we'll take it slowly." His smile took on a wicked edge. "It was a gift, really. You get to have another set of first times ... and _I_ get to teach you."

"Oh." Harry swallowed hard. He couldn't object to this. His self here wouldn't object. There wasn't any reason to, was there? "Um...."

"We'll start slowly, I think," Malfoy said, with a satisfied smirk. "Hm. Just with ... touching."

That couldn't be too bad, Harry thought, but then Malfoy began to look him up and down like he was for sale. Harry wondered if he would be told to strip.

"I will start with my clothes off," Malfoy said thoughtfully. "You should take your robe and shirt off -- and shoes, of course -- but you can leave your trousers on, for now." That decided, he began to undress. Harry both admired and resented Malfoy's blasé grace as he fumbled with his own clothing. He managed not to look too closely when Malfoy dropped his trousers, but he caught a glimpse of a pale, quiescent prick draped down over moderate bollocks. When Malfoy turned away, Harry dared a longer look, and caught himself studying a neat, muscled arse. He swallowed. Malfoy lay down on his stomach with his legs almost together.

"Now come here," he said, over his shoulder. Harry approached cautiously. He couldn't see Malfoy's mouth, but his cheek lifted with a hidden smile. "I just want you to touch me," Malfoy coaxed. "Sit on the bed. Long strokes, everywhere. Don't worry about pleasing me, yet. Just explore."

Trembling, Harry sat on the edge of the bed. Malfoy's body was stretched out before him in clean lines of fair skin -- skin that looked frighteningly perfect. Tentatively, Harry reached out one hand and stroked the fingers from Malfoy's shoulder to the small of his back.

"Mmm," Malfoy said. "That's right."

Emboldened, Harry opened his fingers for a longer touch, enjoying the smooth warmth of skin under his fingertips. He traced down Malfoy's sides, and then his spine, lifting his thumbs before they met the top of the cleft between his buttocks. He swallowed and stroked down Malfoy's sides again, skirting his buttocks to continue down his legs. Malfoy had nice muscles there that felt good against Harry's palm. Harry backed up and stroked down again, this time over the firm curves of Malfoy's arse. He bit off a moan.

"Is anything coming back to you?" Malfoy asked smugly.

"No," Harry answered. "But...." He couldn't quite say, _you feel good_.

"Straddle my thighs," Malfoy suggested, and Harry did that. He returned to his exploratory touches, but the position pulled his trousers into contact with his bollocks and the base of his cock, which was definitely responding to the activity, or possibly just the view. Malfoy moved his head slightly, brushing the back of his hair across his neck, and, impulsively, Harry leaned over and kissed there, where the soft, silver strands started.

"Mm," Malfoy said. Harry froze. The position had brought his erection against Malfoy's arse. He thought he should be jerking back, but it felt too good. Then Malfoy rocked his hips back and forth, and it felt better. Harry ground down, pressing his clothed shaft into Malfoy's crack.

"Merlin, yes!" Malfoy said. "Get those trousers off -- _please_ , Harry."

Harry did, and they tilted to the side so he could wrap a hand around Malfoy's cock -- and god, but even that felt good -- and he rubbed up against him and pulled him off until they both came -- not together, but not awkwardly far apart.

It was brilliant.

 

Eventually, the silence eased into contented sighs, and then Malfoy -- Draco -- rolled over and stroked a hand over Harry's hair, following it with a kiss.

"Remembering anything?"

Harry's bliss evaporated into anxiety. He had forgotten that he was trying to be someone else. "No," he complained, and then rolled on his back to sigh up at the canopy. "Well, yes, but it was all, well _physical_ memory. I knew certain things would please you, and how to do them, but I still don't remember doing it before." He turned his head to look at Draco. "When did we first do that? Was it like that?" _Why you?_

"It was...." Draco thought. "Well, we've always been good friends--"

"Always?" Harry asked skeptically.

"Since we met. Severus had brought you to Diagon Alley to get your school things, and the two of you joined my parents and me for ice cream, and you and I were the best of friends by the end of it. I was worried about Father disapproving of your mixed blood, but he reassured me, that evening, that as your mother was at least a witch, and as Severus would provide you with an appropriate developmental environment, your social status far outweighed that unfortunate blemish." Draco smirked. "Don't scowl, Harry; this is my father I'm quoting, and he was not yet aware of the breadth of your power and skill. Severus had just told him about rescuing you from those Muggles."

Harry turned the words over in his head. "The Dursleys?" he guessed.

"Exactly," Draco said darkly. "Them. Do you remember?"

"They weren't all that dangerous--"

"Harry, they were keeping you in a boot cupboard! And letting their son abuse and isolate you. And they tried to prevent you coming to Hogwarts -- they might have managed it if McGonagall hadn't told Severus about how she was running out of parchment, and it was your letter count that was rising in the ledger."

It clicked into place. Snape had come looking for him before Hagrid was sent. But it had to be more than that, didn't it? His last name was Prince.

"I don't remember that, either," Harry tried. "What happened?"

"You don't?" Draco frowned. "Maybe it affects all family?"

"I remember the Dursleys."

Draco waved that off. "I can't see that they count. They're Muggles, after all. But Severus adopted you. My father helped him move the application through before old Dumbledore found out."

"Oh."

"Of course, as Dumbledore had _clearly_ placed you in an abusive environment -- Father saw to it that Aurors examined the house before the traces faded -- his opinion in the matter wasn't worth much after that report."

"Ah." Harry wanted to ask how Snape had kept his job after that, but that would give away that he knew more than he was letting on. Perhaps Professor Dumbledore had lost his position in the following scandal. Lucius Malfoy could certainly have developed it into a scandal. And he had been raised by Snape, and made to _fully_ understand how much he had been wronged.

"So...." Harry's voice caught, and he had to clear his throat. "We were friends...."

"Of course! And then Severus adopted you, and you Sorted into Slytherin, which was _perfect_ \--" Draco cocked his head and lifted his eyebrows. "Well, except for you being a better Seeker than me, but that was probably for the best. Chaser is a more exciting position anyway."

"Um...." Harry was unconvinced, but Draco had apparently expected this. He smirked. "Actually, it was after a game at the end of sixth year -- when it changed, I mean. We lingered in the showers, and ended up pulling each other off -- very juvenile and clumsy and quick...." The smirk shifted briefly to something softer. "But for all that, _so_ good that we couldn't not do it again. And we learned together -- some from first principles, and some from other sources -- but equally innocent." He leaned over and swept his tongue around the inside of Harry's ear, making Harry squirm in equal parts ticklishness and arousal. "To equally depraved," Draco whispered. "Having the experience to _appreciate_ you as an innocent ... I can't explain what it does to me, my love."

Harry shuddered, and hoped Draco would resume his experiments.

Draco, however, pulled away. "Unfortunately," he said, "I do have an Arithmancy essay to finish."

"I don't take that, do I?"

Draco laughed. "There! _Definitely_ not too deep. No, you use me when you need numbers work -- one of the many things that makes me indispensable to you. Here! I have an idea."

He grabbed Harry's hand and pulled him over to a desk. From the center alcove, he drew out a large box and set his wand to the top, murmuring a password. It opened to show a pile of newspaper clippings. On the top one, Harry saw a picture of Lucius Malfoy, walking in consultation with someone. "These are all articles about you. Reading them may help jog your memory."

Curious, Harry reached for the article, but Draco held his hand back. "Wait. One more thing. Top right-hand drawer, now -- the password is 'mastery', but you have to say it."

Harry suspected that Draco's friend and lover would say that word rather differently than he might. He repeated it with a confidence he didn't feel as he touch his wand to the front of the shallow drawer. It glided open to show a stack of cut parchment and a few scrolls.

"This is your current project. I've had very little to do with it, and you've been obsessing over it, so it may be a more accessible memory."

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

"Project?" Draco asked.

Harry let out a breath. He wondered if he sounded as if he was laughing. Maybe that was the best way to handle it.

"Um, yeah. That was disturbing."

"Oh?"

"Apparently, I --- or, he, that is, Harry One -- was your father's protégé. He was Minister for Magic, there, by the way -- that Lucius Malfoy -- but he often advanced legislation written by Harry. That gave them both more clout, I think."

"So this was ... proposed legislation?"

"Exactly."

Draco studied Harry for a moment. "Having brought it up," he said dryly, "you might as well explain."

Harry grimaced. "Sorry. I'm not quite sure how. It was a proposal to magically damage the fertility of Muggles, but presented as an environmental measure."

Draco appeared to be trying very hard not to laugh. "Environmental?"

"Yes. As in 'save the Welsh Green! Limit Muggle encroachment on the habitat of our native magical creatures!'" Harry made a face. "The idea was to add a potion that damages female fertility to the water supply -- initially in key areas, and then extending the reach all over Britain. Snape had calculated a fifteen percent resistance rate, so the effect would be enough to reduce the population substantially in a generation, even with immigration changes. And I -- well, my analog -- had little notes in the margin: 'present as a humane means of achieving necessary population control' and so on."

Draco bit his lip. "I imagine that was disturbing for you." He hesitated. "At the risk of offending you, however, it doesn't seem like an entirely bad idea."

"Except that Muggles are _human_ ," Harry objected. "They are just as capable of abstraction and thinking about the future as witches and wizards, and this would be _heartbreaking_ for them. And as Hermione pointed out later, we'd be messing up international politics if one nation had that sort of sudden population decline."

"But the Muggle population _is_ too large," Draco noted.

"Right. And if we want to do something about it, why not increase the reliability of Muggle contraception? That eliminates some accidents, rather than punishing people who want children. Or we could magically enhance campaigns encouraging people to have fewer children or to limit changes in land use. But _this_ was just playing God with potions."

Draco shrugged. "I can see your point. Anyway, what happened? Did you give yourself away?"

Harry looked away. He poured himself some wine. "Not over that," he said. "And not over the news clippings. I'd been preparing myself for something offensive, because of that Draco's jokes. He said later, though, that he'd become suspicious during sex, because I was so _quiet_. His Harry had been loud their first time, he said, so it shouldn't rely on memory."

"He didn't let on, though," Draco said, with a trace of pride.

Breaking into a smile, Harry finally looked at him again. "No. He had a Plan, of course, with a capital P."

"Of course," Draco answered. "So what gave you away?"

"Er..." Harry grinned. "Um, the next time he went down on me, he tried a finger up my arse...."

"And you went through the roof?"

"God, no." Harry had to close his eyes for a moment, remembering the first press of Draco One's fingers _inside_ him. "But he decided I was far too tight to have _ever_...." Harry laughed uneasily. "Not that he said so then, either."

"Oh ho! _Then_ what did he do?"

"Oh, he talked to Snape -- Headmaster Prince, rather; your father helped him claim his mother's name as part of the adoption, so I could still grow up with a proper Wizarding one. Then he led me into a trap."


	2. Lost in the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry is sent on, but not home.

"But he'll notice," Harry said frantically. "What do I do?"

"As a first step," Draco said smartly, "you relax. He's your _father_ , Harry. He won't harm you, even if he does find out." As Harry tried to reply, Draco held up a hand. "As a second step, you bring me along. Ask him first, of course, but he's bound to say yes. I often have dinner with the two of you. I'll try to provide you with enough cues to keep abreast of the conversation."

"Thank you," Harry said. "Truly."

 

At first, things seemed to be going well enough. Snape greeted him warmly -- that was disturbing -- and gestured them to seats by the fire.

"Dinner should appear shortly," he said over his shoulder as he prepared drinks at a narrow cabinet. "Draco, you'll have tonic water?"

"Yes, please." Draco smiled mischievously as he leaned back. "You know I prefer my wine to anything served before dinner."

"Of course," Snape answered blandly. He brought over two glasses. "With gin," he said, setting one on the table in front of Harry, "and without."

Despite himself, Harry stared at the glass. _Gin?_ He had never had anything like that. Refusing would be suspicious, but his behavior might end up being more suspicious if the drink made him tipsy. He decided he had better drink it, but slowly. "Thank you," he said, as neutrally as possible, and lifted the glass. The ice in it tinkled musically against the sides, and it smelled lovely. He took a cautious sip.

Gin turned out to be like coffee; it smelled lovely and tasted vile. He thought he managed to swallow it without grimacing, but even diluted, the alcohol stung his sinuses. He coughed slightly. Snape appeared not to notice, settling comfortably in a wing-back chair and lifting his own glass.

"Now," he said, "Harry. Professor McGonagall informs me that you have been having trouble with your Transfiguration work this week."

"It's just that I've never seen it before," Harry answered readily, and his eyes widened in horror. "You put Veritaserum in my drink!"

"Tsk." Snape raised his head. "Of course not. You would receive the dosage entirely too slowly. I painted it on the rim of the glass."

"You _bastard_!"

"Language, Mr--" Snape relaxed back. "Hm. What _is_ your name?"

"Harry James Potter," Harry ground out.

Snape's indolence vanished in an instant. "You are _not_ Harry! Where is _my son_?"

"I don't know." Harry pushed back his hair. "Where I came from, I expect, but I don't know."

"And you came from...?"

"Another universe. Timeline. Whatever wizards call them. I didn't mean to come here; it was an accident. I made a stupid wish at the wrong moment, and I appeared _naked_ in _Slytherin_ , with _him_ there." Harry stabbed a finger towards Draco, who was staring, jaw dropped, at his confession.

"And your house is?"

"Gryffindor," Harry said strongly. "Or it was, until I left school to try to get rid of Y-" He found he couldn't say "You-Know-Who." Snape _wouldn't_ know, he thought, which made it untrue. Still, he didn't want to risk saying Voldemort's name now, even in another world, and the potion didn't seem to be forcing that. "Tom Riddle," he finished finally. "Your former lord."

Snape's eyebrows rose. "He was not destroyed in his attack on you and your parents?"

"He was disembodied," Harry returned, "but not destroyed. It's probably the same here. He has bits of his soul stashed around, so only a little of it was in his body. Two of his servants arranged to restore him when I was fourteen."

"Interesting," Snape snarled. "So if Harry -- my Harry -- is in your place, is he in danger?"

Harry hadn't thought about that before. "I'd imagine some," he said. "A lot, if he goes looking for you, or for a Malfoy. You'd all turn me over to _him_ in a heartbeat."

Snape surged to his feet. "I'd kill you," he spat, "but that might strand him in that place."

"You'd better return me, then," Harry said boldly. Only the potion kept him from flinching when Snape whirled on him, his lips pulled back in a snarl.

"Yes," he said. "And regrettably, you had better be seen behaving somewhat normally until then. Draco, can you keep him under control?"

Draco shrugged. "I expect so. He has a vested interest in cooperating." He smirked sidelong at Harry. "And he _has_ been enjoying his lessons."

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

Harry paused in his story, and for the first time in several minutes, focused on Draco. Draco noticed, and his uncertainty changed to a mocking sneer.

"So, do I know where this goes?" His face twisted. "You returned, making the switch just in time to save Granger, and have since decided you're entitled to me in this world too?"

"No." Harry shook his head. "It's not like that. And anyway, if I'd just gone to this world where I was a murderous bigot and your lover, why would that make me think better of you? But it was more complicated than that."

"Oh?" Draco's head still had a suspicious tilt, but he sounded intrigued.

"Hermione was dealing with another Harry -- let's call him Harry Three--"

"Three?" Draco snorted. "What happened to Two?"

"We'll get to Two. Anyway, she saw what I did with the sword, and heard what I said, and said afterwards I seemed a little disoriented, but that made sense. Harry Three did know about Horcruxes, though, and knew exactly what he was doing in a tent in the woods, and she thought he was me, until he started demanding to know what she had done with his cigarettes."

Draco laughed. "Oh, that must have been entertaining!"

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

"Harry!" Hermione rushed forward. After Harry's shout, she could have sworn she had seen a flash of cream and green, and a disturbing waver in the space between herself and her friend. Now he was staring down at the ground, or perhaps at the tip of the sword.

"I--" he looked up; stopped. "Hermione?"

"Are you all right?"

He looked at the sword, at his hands, at his body. "I think so?"

"Do you remember what a Horcrux is?" she asked.

He snorted, his eyes shifting away from her.

"Well?" she insisted.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

Her breath came out in a whoosh of relief. "There was a blur after you wished you didn't," she confessed.

Tentatively, he shook his head. "Did I wish that? I don't remember that." He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. "Honestly, the last thing I remember was lying in bed, trying to get to sleep." He looked around. "But everything seems normal."

"Oh, dear!" Hermione wondered if he had been possessed. By Voldemort? But he had done the right thing, she thought. By Godric, perhaps? That was still disturbing. "Come into the tent," she said. "You need to warm up, at least."

 

Hermione settled Harry with tea and a blanket. He kept frowning at the space around him, as if something were bothering him, but when she asked, he said he wasn't sure what was wrong. After two rounds of this, she excused herself and went back outside to think.

Harry had made a reckless wish -- not that such things were usually a problem, even in the magical world -- and had struck the tree, and something had _happened_ ; she was sure of it. She went over to the tree. At first, she could not find a gash. Then she saw a twist of green tumbling over the bark and realized that a fragile spray of forget-me-nots -- one of dozens -- was growing as she watched. The gash was there, deeper than a sword should have made and overflowing with unseasonal wildflowers.

It was not reassuring.

While Hermione was contemplating the summery display, Harry stormed out of the tent. He stuck out his hand, palm up.

"Hand them over."

"What?"

Harry's lip curled in a snarl that she had seen before, but seldom directed at her. "My cigarettes. Now."

"What?" She stared.

"Don't even try," he snapped. "It's the wrong season for pixies, and there's nothing else with thumbs around here. And don't fucking tell me I'm being irritable, or I'll show you irritable!"

"But...." This was worse than a lapse in memory. She couldn't explain it at all. She stepped back, too frantically busy with thinking to stand her ground.

" _Now,_ Hermione."

"You don't smoke," she blurted out.

His jaw dropped. For a moment he just blinked at her. "Are you insane?" he said finally. "What's the point of even _saying_ that? It's not like I'm going to believe it."

"The only person I've ever heard you _mention_ smoking is your cousin, and you thought that was disgusting."

He rolled his eyes. "Hermione. My godfather? Dark-haired, careless bloke? The one I live with?"

She gasped. She couldn't help it. Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, Harry!" she cried, dismayed.

"What?"

"He ... Sirius died when you were fifteen."

For a moment, Harry looked shocked, and then so enraged that she thought he might strike her. He turned away, though, winter cloak twisting high with the force of it, and disappeared into the tent without a word.

She forced herself to breathe and tried to think, but the look on his face wouldn't leave her mind. He hadn't forgotten about Horcruxes, but something had obviously scrambled his memories. She wondered if she was seeing some erstwhile private fantasy, and that was almost as disturbing as the fury with which he had faced her -- more so, when she thought about it.

She was staring out into the trees when a spray of snow caught her attention, and she whirled in time to see a flash of a boot and an inch of broomstick accelerating through the clear winter air.

"Harry!"

A rush of wind, and he was gone.

 

She was trying a third location spell when her second one suddenly went wild, and a muddled blur of cloth dropped through the trees, resolving into Harry as he took off his invisibility cloak.

"Hey, love," he said brightly, dropping the fine fabric in a silvery heap on the snow and pulling out an already open pack of cigarettes. "Sorry I took so long. We weren't quite where I expected."

"You've endangered us," she said tightly, and he hesitated briefly before shaking his head.

"No one saw me."

"Oh? Did you _steal_ those?"

He snorted. "I left money. But yes, I didn't risk a transaction. So calm down." He drew out a cigarette. "Anyway, on my way back, I had a thought."

He paused to set the fag in his mouth and to light it with a careless-looking snap of his fingers at the tip. He looked frighteningly like he had made the motion hundreds of times.

"And?"

"Mm." He exhaled. She expected him to cough, but he didn't. "Well, you read more than I do, especially theory. Is there a magical concept of alternate universes?"

"Well, yes. It's well accepted in Arithmancy, but they're really more dangerous to travel in than time. It's impossible to predict--" Her reasoning caught up with her knowledge, choking the words.

"Ah. Right. Because I thought you were lying about the cigarettes -- you would, you know, if you came across some theory about improving your friends with 'disorientation therapy' or some such thing -- but what you said about Sirius was just _cruel_. And you're not cruel. And last I knew, our camp was well on the other side of the hill with the holly grove."

She bit her lip. He took another quick puff on the cigarette and shrugged. "So, I thought what if we're both right, but I'm from another not-quite-parallel timeline? If Sirius had died when I was fifteen, I never would have lived with him when he was really free, and I probably _wouldn't_ smoke." He looked off into the distance, his expression somber. "I don't suppose..." He shot her a quick, guilty look. "Um, that Ron stayed in this one?"

It was a nice thought. She sighed. "No."

Glumly, he nodded. "Well then. How do we fix it? That's where you usually take over."

She looked around, as if there might be some resource other than bare trees and compressed snow. "I _usually_ have books."

"You still have books in your head." He looked far too confident. Perhaps this Harry looked like that all the time. "I'll lift more for you, if you need them."

"Harry!"

He shrugged. "Well, I can. I don't see that it does any harm, if I leave money."

"If the money gets to the right person."

One shoulder rose again. "It will, if the shop is small enough that it really matters. If not ... well, you want your friend back, right? Because I really don't want to have lost another family."

"Yes, but...." She bit her lip. "It's not safe. And it's not _right_."

He started an answer, hesitated, and then looked away. A final drag on the cigarette and he finally stubbed it out. For a moment, he looked like he ought to.

"Look, what about Draco? Is he an animagus here, or did that depend on Sirius?"

She sputtered. His eyes narrowed.

"Draco _is_ still my boyfriend, right?"

" _What?_ NO!"

He blinked. "Really? I can't imagine how losing Sirius would mess that up. Was I too upset to notice what was happening to him, sixth year?"

"You were completely _obsessed_ with him in sixth year!" Hermione retorted, and then realized that had come out wrong, given the context. "Obsessed with proving he was a Death Eater, I mean."

"But I didn't offer him asylum?" this other Harry questioned, obviously finding the thought incredible. "I don't understand how Sirius could change that. The split must have been earlier."

"I don't even know what you mean!" she countered. "Asylum? From what?"

"He was desperate," Harry said earnestly. "Afraid. Vo-- You-know-who had threatened that his family would die with him if he didn't kill Professor Dumbledore. I stumbled across him when he'd broken down -- it was a mess, really, but after I disarmed him, I asked if I could help, and he gave up and screamed out a confession. He told me later that he'd hoped I'd kill him, because nothing was working, and he didn't have the nerve to kill himself. Instead I promised him help and went to Dumbledore for him, and he offered asylum for Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy ... but kept Draco as a hostage against their good behavior."

"None of that happened here," Hermione answered. "Draco didn't manage it, and Snape did it for him."

The last bit didn't seem to take this Harry by surprise. He nodded. "How did your Sirius die?"

"Voldemort gave you a vision that he had been captured -- a false vision -- and you went to rescue him, and--"

"That happened," Harry interrupted. "The vision part. But I talked to him in the mirror and knew it wasn't true."

"Oh. I see."

"Why didn't I here?"

"You didn't have the mirror."

She didn't want to say more, and Harry didn't ask why she knew what he meant. He leaned back against a broad oak tree, crossing his arms sullenly over his chest.

"I can't imagine not having Draco."

"Well you don't!" she said sharply. "Don't go to him here. You're enemies. You've always been enemies."

He shrugged. "We were in my world too, until last year."

" _Here_ is not there."

"Right. Believe me, that's sinking in like lead." The bitterness was enough sign that he believed her. Hesitantly, she reached a hand out to lay on his arm.

"Harry." She bit her lip. It was dry with the cold, and she knew she was making that worse. "I'll try to get you home."

Sighing, he laid his hand on top of hers. "I know you will, love. You'd do it for me, even if you didn't want your own Harry back, and I'm sure you do."

"Quite a lot," she confessed. She made a face, but it turned into a smile. "And he doesn't call me 'love'."

He grinned. "More of my godfather's influence, I expect." He hesitated. "Look, I won't run off on you. It's been you and me since we lost Ron, and it still is, in a way. My Hermione will take care of your Harry too. We don't need to resolve it today."

"Okay." Now that she thought about it, that was true. Harry would be safer in this Harry's world than her visitor was in this one. He might not trust people he should, but he wouldn't trust anyone he shouldn't.

"So," he asked, "if I'm not seeing Draco...."

She looked at him inquiringly.

"Well, am I ... anyone?"

"Ginny Weasley," she answered, and he looked unreasonably shocked. "Well, in the current situation it's sort of on hiatus...."

"Ginny Weasley!" he repeated incredulously. "Much of an Oedipus complex, this friend of yours?"

She frowned. "I don't see she's all that motherly."

"Have you _seen_ pictures of my mum? All Ginny'd need to do is put a little wave in her hair -- and her body, maybe a stone, in just the right places...."

"Weight gain doesn't work like that."

"And I'm not saying she ought to if she could, just that that's all it would take for her to look like my mother! Though at that, she'd probably be too curvy for me."

Hermione glared, and Harry sighed. "There's nothing _wrong_ with it, Hermione. You're beautiful, really. I just like -- I mean, I can see how Ginny would be _boyish_ enough for me."

"Oh." She got what he meant, suddenly. Now that she thought about it, Cho had been rather flat. "I expect she'll, um, grow more."

"Right." Harry rolled his eyes. "Do me a favor and tell your Harry that Draco's brilliant in bed, hm? All three of them will be happier, long term."

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

Draco was hunched over the table, staring at his wine. "So. In that time ... he offered to help me-- I mean, help him. Draco Three, I suppose."

"Yeah." Harry took a deep breath. "I can't imagine -- I'm certain I wasn't capable of it. Maybe it _was_ losing Sirius, or something else about that battle. It was only when I heard about that -- later, before getting back -- that I realized how desperate and angry I was that year, how much I wanted--" He was stumbling, but he needed to say enough for Draco to understand that he didn't understand, that they didn't know each other.

"Sirius Black? Because he was your godfather?"

"Sirius was my last chance for family -- well, to be someone's child."

Draco raised his eyebrows. "Someone must have taken care of you."

Harry snorted. "My aunt and uncle did, minimally, but only because Dumbledore made them keep me. They hated me, hated magic, hated my parents...."

"Oh." Draco lifted his wine glass. "Still, you were their child."

"Draco, they kept me in a cupboard so their son could have two bedrooms."

Draco's eyes widened. "What!"

"Only till I was eleven," Harry amended.

He laughed tightly. "Oh, well, that's all right, then."

"My Hogwarts letter came addressed to 'the Cupboard under the Stairs', and they panicked."

Draco snorted. "As well they should have. That business about Professor Snape turning you against Muggles is starting to make more sense."

"It probably wouldn't have taken much doing," Harry agreed grimly. "It took me years to realize just how horrible the Dursleys were to me." He looked over at Draco. "That it wasn't _normal_ , I mean. That it wasn't my fault for being a burden."

Draco studied him for a minute, but finally nodded. "Go on, then," he said. "What else happened with Hermione and Harry Three?"

"Well, that's most of what she's told me. They got on all right, and she wasn't worried about me, because she thought I was in his world. Of course, all that time I thought she was with my Muggle-hating counterpart and was afraid of what he might do to her, and Draco One was equally worried that _his_ Harry would get himself killed approaching people whom he would regard as allies. He decided that if I'd been sent by a nymph, sex-magic would be the best way to reverse it...."

"Oh? So you had another excuse to get in my -- excuse me, _his_ \-- pants?"

Harry tried to glare, but he couldn't not smile. "You seem to think I'm confusing things," he said, as loftily as he could manage. "I'm not. And I didn't need excuses, as he was delighted to be the experienced one, and always ready to show me something new." He swallowed, remembering that brilliant week of discoveries. "But the spell was excellent, intense sex. The magic has this effect...." He stopped and wet his lips. Draco shivered.

"Anyway," Draco said shakily. "The spell."

"Oh, right! Well, that part worked, but not the way we had hoped. It sent me on, but...."

"Mm. Considering that it wasn't a switch, I expect you didn't come straight home."

"Right, but since _I_ didn't know it wasn't a switch, when I found myself in front of a Professor Snape, next to a Draco Malfoy, I assumed Harry One had been an idiot and gone to _you_ , and that you were turning him in...."

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

With another replicated stroke up his own cock, Draco One brought Harry to the brink of orgasm -- again.

"God, Draco," he gasped, straining against the bonds that held him to the tree. " _Please._ "

"Such a Muggle boy," Draco teased. "My Harry would hate you. Do you think nothing of blasphemy?"

"Nothing, fuck," Harry agreed incoherently, promising himself he'd figure that out later. "Let me go, Draco. Please."

"Will you miss me?" Draco asked sharply.

"Yes!" The word shot out before Harry even knew how true it was. "I won't forget you," he promised.

"Good."

Draco's hand squeezed and moved in a hard blur. When Harry roared, Draco's wand snapped forward, severing the ropes at wrists and waist and ankles. Harry fell _up_.


	3. A Smoother Path

Harry snapped into place in a stiff brocade chair. Draco was at his side, and he was facing Professor Snape.

"SHIT!"

"Harry?"

The snap of his wrist was successful. He was dressed, which included a wand. " _Expelliarmus!_ "

" _Incarcerous!_ " Snape had gone flying, but Draco had been so quick to respond that he must already have had his wand out. Harry's wand hand was caught. He managed a nonverbal Impediment charm, but before he could do more, Snape had recovered his own wand, taken Harry's, and countered the hex on Draco.

"Were you in insufficient trouble already, Mr. Potter?" he sneered.

"If I'm about to die, it hardly matters, does it?" Harry shot back.

Snape drew back and up, like an offended goose. "Die? I am hardly about to kill you, although if the headmistress hears of this, you may wish I had."

Harry's jaw dropped. "The head..."

"I have told you, cretin, that you are _not_ in your world anymore!"

"Hold for a moment, sir," Draco said, coming to his feet, and motioning for Snape to stay back. "I don't believe this is the same Harry we were dealing with before." As Snape swept his robes around him and raised his nose, Draco took a step towards Harry's chair. "Stand up."

Confused, Harry stood. Now that he had thought about it, they were in Snape's dungeon office, not the headmaster's tower, and Snape had seemed genuinely taken aback at the idea that Harry might be in mortal danger. Perhaps he was not back in his own world after all. Summoning his defiance, he looked steadily at Draco, trying to pretend the boy was not a few inches taller than he was.

"Relax," Draco said, not as sarcastically as he might. "I just want you to kiss me."

"Mr. Malfoy...." Snape began.

"Diagnostically," Draco shot back, and with the eye away from Snape, winked at Harry. Harry grinned back and stepped readily into a kiss.

This Draco was quicker and more active than the previous one. Harry enjoyed the contest of tongues, and the way Draco rested a cool hand at the back of his neck. If it hadn't been for Snape, he would have reached for Draco's arse to pull him in. Instead, he stroked the side of Draco's jaw and felt Draco moan into his mouth.

"That is ENOUGH!"

Sniggering, Draco pulled back. "I suppose that it is. He's definitely not the same boy I brought here."

"You will excuse me if I don't take your word for it." Snape turned, sneering, to Harry. "Have you any identifying marks?"

Harry glanced at his left hand. Again, he could see faint white lines across it. He held his arm out, twisting it to show the back of his hand to Snape. "Curse scar."

After a moment of squinting at the elusive lines, Snape snapped his wand at them, muttering a short incantation. The scar suddenly stung as if fresh. Harry found he had pulled the hand in, and had to force himself to stretch it out again. The lines were a readable, angry red.

"I must not tell lies," Snape read. "In something close to your horrific first-year penmanship. Tell me, Mr. Potter -- how did you get this?"

"Umbridge made me write lines. With a Blood Quill."

"Umbridge?" Snape asked in surprise. "Deputy Minister of the Office of Bureaucratic Oversight? She generally levies fees, in this world."

"Well, she taught Defense Against the Dark Arts in my fifth year, in mine," Harry shot back.

"That incompetent toad?"

"Exactly. I ended up leading a secret study group for students that actually wanted to learn practical defense."

Snape's eyebrows rose. "And the lines were for...?"

"Saying Voldemort was back."

Snape took a step back. "Impossible."

"That's what she said. But Barty Crouch Jr. kidnapped me at the end of fourth year, and Wormtail -- Peter Pettigrew -- made Voldemort a new body from my blood and some other disgusting things."

"Ah," Snape said, his focus going past Harry as he assembled this story into possibilities. "Pettigrew was captured here. He was apparently an animagus, living as a rat with one of the Weasley boys in Gryffindor. Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban, dragged the boy off, and took the rat from him, killing it."

"Did he get away?" Harry asked, his heart in his throat. He hadn't interfered, apparently. Had Sirius survived?

"No, but when he produced Pettigrew's body, Professor Dumbledore intervened with the Minister to get him a trial, and those fools in the Wizengamot kowtowed to his wishes and let the madman off with time served."

"Brilliant!" Harry said, smiling with relief. "Is he my guardian?"

Snape frowned at him. Draco cleared his throat. "Well, yes," he said, "but you mostly just fight. Or rather, you fight, and then one of you sulks, and then you send him a conciliatory letter or he sends you an expensive present, and then you maintain strained civility until the next fight. He's not at all happy about you being in Slytherin, and his attitude toward Professor Snape is execrable."

Harry looked down at his tie. "Oh, hell! I'm in Slytherin here, too?"

Snape settled into a chair, stretching his arms along the sides of it. "And where _else_ would you be, Mr. Potter?"

"Gryffindor," Harry said hotly. "I'm a Gryffindor."

"Ugh!" Draco exclaimed. "I kissed a Gryffindor!" and that was so unexpected that Harry burst out laughing. He looked at Draco, who was smiling smugly at him.

"Worse yet," he responded, raising his eyebrows. "You enjoyed it."

Draco grinned.

"Well," Snape said sourly, "whatever hidden craft got you into Slytherin in two worlds, you had better reach down deep and find it now. You are a person of some interest to many parties, and I _cannot_ have it put about that you are lost. However, your behavior towards the Muggleborn students, over this past week, has been hostile enough to draw comment. Draco brought the matter to my attention earlier, and again today, when you attempted to involve him and Theodore Nott in a scheme to sterilize the Muggle women of a nearby town. We had just determined that you were not, in fact, _our_ Harry Potter, when you were suddenly also not _that_ Harry Potter."

"Prince," Harry said smugly.

"Explain yourself!"

"Harry Potter _Prince_. You adopted him before he came to school, and Lucius Malfoy helped with that, and with letting you claim your mother's name so he would be spared the disgrace of being raised with a Muggle one."

Snape's nostrils flared. "Potter is an old Wizarding name."

"But Snape isn't."

For a moment, Harry thought Snape would strike him down with the Cruciatus curse. The professor stretched up and breathed out through his teeth.

"Not that I care," Harry said hurriedly, "but the last Harry saved all his correspondence and news clippings about himself, and I got the impression, reading them, that Lucius had seen it as a political opportunity from the start."

"Ah." Snape stood down, his shoulders relaxing fractionally. "Yes. And he would have the clout to get me that, despite her father's will."

"He argued that it should not outweigh losing the name. Apparently your remaining cousin died childless, after your grandfather?"

"Do not call him that!" Snape hissed, but then sank back. "Yes. It could be possible." His eyes snapped to Harry. "We will discuss this," he said. "I need to give you several nights of detention anyway, lest Professor McGonagall catch word of what your predecessor suggested. However, if you behave appropriately -- both in public and towards me -- we will use those times for discussion and tutelage."

Harry nodded cautiously. This Snape did not appear to hate him, at least.

"Draco, please explain to the boy how he is expected to behave," Snape said, rising to his feet. "I have a detention to supervise in my classroom."

Professor Snape swept out of the office, the door clacking shut behind him. Harry and Draco looked at each other, until Draco finally cleared his throat.

"First," he said, "you are entirely impressed with my cleverness, breeding, and wit, and you do anything I say."

Harry snorted. "Try again, Malfoy. I don't believe I'm less than willful in _any_ world."

"Well, you can't blame me for trying," Draco said airily. His face tightened. "I will _not_ be pushed around."

Harry found this overly dramatic, until he thought about the Harry that had preceded him. "Of course not," he assured him. "How's this? I won't treat you as a minion, and you won't treat me as a fool."

Relaxing, Draco smiled. "Good. You _do_ like me, though -- or rather, your counterpart does."

"Yeah, I kind of got that from kissing me as a means of identification."

Draco sniggered. "It was half to rile the Professor, but yes -- I'd know my Harry from a kiss. The last one was awful. I knew something was wrong right away."

"But not the extent of it?"

"Not at first. He became suddenly pushy; I thought he had been going a little too far with Dark Arts. But _my_ Harry is widely considered Slytherin's ambassador to the mixed-blood students; this afternoon's scheme clearly did not come from his mind."

Harry sighed in relief. "Well, that's something. The last world kept making me cringe. So, we're actually friends?"

Draco smirked. "We're actually _boyfriends_. However, yes -- we've been friends since we met."

"On the train?" Harry guessed. It had to be different.

"No, in Diagon Alley, both doing our first Hogwarts shopping. I was in Madam Malkin's when Professor Flitwick -- he was escorting you -- brought you in. You clearly weren't his child, so I said hello, and introduced myself. When I heard your name, I was terribly excited, as you might imagine. I said I hadn't been sure you'd be at Hogwarts, and you said you hadn't heard of it until that morning. I was shocked, of course! I mean, I knew your parents had been a witch and a wizard, and then you explained about your aunt and uncle." Draco, who had been leaning forward, his face alight with remembered excitement, sat back.

"It was very odd for me. Father had been saying all summer that Hogwarts had too many of the 'wrong sort' of students -- ones who didn't know anything about Wizarding traditions. And here you didn't! But I sort of understood that he _meant_ Muggleborns, and you _weren't_. And it hardly seemed fair that you might be kept out because you had been orphaned, and someone had placed you with Muggles who had lied to you."

Harry could see that. One little bit of information -- his name -- had changed how Malfoy looked at him -- not by itself, but in a cascade of supplemental information. Rather than thinking about himself during the encounter, he had been thinking about Harry. "So what did you do?" Harry asked.

"I offered to explain things to you, of course. And I told you all about Quidditch, and you thought it sounded brilliant, and I said you should come to Quality Quidditch Supplies with me. Professor Flitwick wasn't keen on it; he asked where my parents were. Quite innocently, I said my mother was picking out a wand for me, and as you can imagine, he rather exploded out of his chair, saying I'd _never_ achieve my magical potential with a wand selected by someone else. He left us there and bustled off to Ollivander's, and then came back to fetch us.

"Mother _had_ selected a wand for me, a hawthorn one, with a unicorn hair core. I thought unicorns were rather too girly, and something else would certainly suit me better. She was right about that part, though, and Flitwick was right that I needed to choose. I ended up with a hazel wand, still with a unicorn tail hair core, but a bit more whippy and half an inch longer than the one she chose -- and it felt much better, in use."

Harry stared. "A chance encounter with me changed your _wand_?"

"Exactly."

"That might have changed your whole life!"

"Exactly. It probably did. But what mattered more to us at the time was that in return for Mother's concession, Professor Flitwick let you go to the Quidditch shop with me, and I bought you a book on the basics of the game, and on the First of September, I waited for you at Kings Cross." Draco's mouth quirked. " _Rather_ to Father's dismay, of course, but you were too important for him to forbid it."

He waved the matter off. "Anyway, we need an explanation for your predecessor's hostility to Muggles and Muggleborns, and a cover for any confusion on your part. I was thinking the Imperius curse."

Harry shook his head. "I can resist that." His mouth twisted as he thought. "On the other hand, my scar gives Voldemort a certain amount of access to me. We could exaggerate that and say he took over my mind for several days."

"The Dark Lord died here. At least people believe so."

"They assumed that in my world too," Harry said. "Because they wanted to. I bet it's the same here."

Draco's eyes widened, but he closed his mouth when it tried to gape, and he swallowed. "Anyone who believed that would be terrified," he said, a little too tightly. "And people would be afraid of _my_ Harry, when he gets back."

"So we say Professor Snape is teaching me to keep him out, but that I may be distracted or disoriented while I'm learning. That covers mistakes in the next week or two, and then I'm fine."

"I still don't want to stir up trouble by saying He could return."

 _But he could_ , Harry wanted to protest, but he could see that this wasn't the time to try to convince everyone. "All right then. It's just residue of his spirit in my scar, but something triggered it."

Draco frowned, but thoughtfully. "Yes, that would do. It might even reassure some people. It's often said that you're too untouched by your past."

"You mean they've been waiting for me to act crazy, and might feel better now that I have?"

Draco nodded. "If they can reasonably believe that's the worst of it," he said with a wink. He reached out and took Harry's hand. "Come on, then. Let's find Professor Snape and tell him what we've decided, and then we can go back to Slytherin. You must have mad Gryffindor orgies to tell me about."

"We're rather tame, actually."

Draco snorted. "As if I'll believe that!"

"Well, you know -- it's that honor thing."

"Honor? Gryffindors?" Draco hip-checked him in the hallway, knocking him out of step. "So, make it up if you have to! Honestly! I'm giving you the opportunity to present me with entirely unverifiable -- or deniable -- stories of how entirely hot you are."

The hallway didn't seem to be the place to say that he was living in a tent with a girl who wasn't even a flirtation, much less his lover. Harry just rolled his eyes and followed.

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

"And what was Granger dealing with then?" Draco asked, pouring more wine for both of them.

"Oh, the Harry from the world I was in -- Harry Two." Harry took a swallow of the wine. "Of course, she wasn't as unaware this time ... and neither was he, because he'd already been in Harry Three's world. But since Harry Three's situation was visually indistinguishable from this one, he didn't immediately get that he'd switched...."

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

The boy Hermione thought of as 'Sirius's Harry' went into his room in the tent, but Hermione had no sooner sat down with her maps and her notes than he emerged again.

"Forget something?" she asked, and he gave a careless shrug.

"Dropped off for a minute and then woke up again," he said. He scraped his tongue against his teeth. "And there's this taste in my mouth like the fire backed up."

Hermione froze. Could this be her Harry, back again? Maybe the body stayed put? She was sure smoking must leave a taste. "Harry?" she asked tentatively.

The question made no sense, but his contemptuous snort still hurt. "No one else out here, is there?" he asked mockingly. "You've made that clear."

The comment was still wrong, and then he looked curiously at the map she had been working on for the last several evenings. "What's that?"

She stood up, using the movement to cover a check on her wand -- up her sleeve and ready to drop out, point first.

"I don't believe we've met."

He stared. Then, unbelievably, his eyes closed, and stayed closed for several seconds, as if she could not be a danger.

"I'm in another world?" he asked, opening them. " _Another_ other world?" He sounded outraged. "Like _this_?"

She nodded stiffly. "If you haven't seen this map before--"

"I cannot _believe_ I got myself into this mess in _two_ worlds!"

"Excuse me?"

"Living as a _fugitive_?" he prodded. "In a _tent_ , in the _snow_? With my only companion a Muggle-born girl?"

Hermione stared. " _What_ did you call me?"

The new Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry. _Woman_."

"That wasn't why I asked."

He looked genuinely puzzled for a moment, and then a bit taken aback. "Muggle-born? You are, aren't you?"

"Well, yes," she said hotly, "but it's not something you'd care about. I mean, your counter--"

He waved the explanation aside. "Oh, I don't _care_ ," he said easily. "You're quite as good a witch as any, and I like you, besides. Although it _is_ politically inconvenient for me to admit it, and you _could_ demonstrate some appreciation...."

"You think so, do you?"

He gave her a devilish smile worthy of his predecessor. "Of course. The Hermione in my world does." Smirking, he dropped down onto the comfortable chair and lounged there, one leg tossed carelessly over an arm of it. "In return for my public favor."

"I see." A cold rage was building in her chest. "And she expresses this by...?"

With a careless wave to the side, he shrugged. "Helping me with research, mostly." With a disdainful look around him, he drew attention to the sparse central room of the tent. "Of course, that is hardly relevant here."

"Is that so," she said mockingly, not even making it a question. She wondered if she should point out the map to him.

Shamelessly, he studied her. "Hm. If the food here is as bad as the previous world, perhaps you'd be willing to cook what game I hex down?"

She stared.

"You hunt?"

"Well, only for sport, until the last world, but I'm good enough." He cocked his head to the side. "What do you do for _your_ Harry?"

"Well...." The question was so wrong that she couldn't think how to answer it. "I help him with research, of course, but it's not part of some _agreement_....."

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Because we're friends."

"Still, he's selling himself short, not demanding what resources he can. As are you. If you're each only taking what scraps the other has left, neither of you is getting what you most need."

It sounded sensible, but she didn't believe it. She set her head to one side, studying him while she thought. "You're a Slytherin."

She expected ranting, but he smiled even more easily than the last Harry. "Very good. And you? Still a Gryffindor?"

She nodded. "Yes."

He sighed dramatically. "Really! In any sensible world you'd be a Ravenclaw. Everyone says so. How do you manage to be a Gryffindor in three?"

She raised her head proudly. "I don't let _hats_ make decisions for me. Gryffindor sounded by far the best."

His eyes widened slightly, but his pose stayed loose and casual. "How Slytherin of you!"

Despite herself, she found that she liked this Harry. "Really? I thought it was bold and Gryffindorish."

"A little of both, I think," he acknowledged. "So, tell me about this world. It looks very like the last one."

"Well, my Harry is the enemy that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named fears most, now that Dumbledore is dead. Death Eaters have taken over the Ministry and Hogwarts, so we're on the run."

Harry nodded. "And looking for Horcruxes. That's the same as the last place. And Ron Weasley -- there's a strange thought! -- had been with you, but he left and was killed."

She jumped back to her feet, letting out a little cry. "No!"

"Oh. Are you--" Harry caught himself. "In the last world, it was announced on some wireless show that he had been apprehended and killed trying to resist arrest. Not here?"

"No," she said, her voice scraping her throat. "As far as we know, he's fine, and just can't find us."

He nodded. "Probably true. I think you would have heard if he'd died, since I gather it would have a demoralizing effect on my counterpart." He looked around. "Do Draco and Sirius still visit?"

She shook her head. "Sirius is dead and Malfoy is an enemy."

"What?" He stared at her. "Okay, I can believe it about Sirius. He's careless, and far too full of himself. Draco, though -- we should be friends, at least. We can't have spent six years in school together without realizing how much we have in common."

"I can't think of a thing you have in common with that cowardly, conceited bigot," she said harshly, "and he lives to make your life miserable."

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

"Tactful," Draco said dryly.

"Well, her main concern was keeping my body safe -- and part of that was keeping him away from you. On the whole, it sounds like they got along. She liked him; I can tell by the way her face softens in the middle of these stories." Shrugging, Harry shifted on the sofa, pretending that he didn't notice how that brought him closer to Draco. He could feel the man's body like a fire at his side.

"Anyway, Draco One and Snape One must have caused the next change. Snape Two was planning some sort of Dark Arts spell, but we never started it, and Hermione says she didn't get far enough with her theories to try anything, but suddenly I was back at the encampment in the Forest of Dean. At first, like Harry Two, I thought I was home. Hermione wasn't there, though, which was scary. I mean, she could have gone out to get something, but I was afraid Harry One had done something to her. I went out to walk around the tent and look for tracks, but I'd only gone about halfway around before I saw a low, dark shape racing through the trees...."

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

Quickly, Harry evaluated his situation. There was no cover. By the time he could get around the tent to the door, whatever was coming would be on him. He drew his wand and braced himself, only to see the beast's mad rush change to an easy lope. Closer and slower, it was clearly a large, shaggy, black dog. His heart caught in his throat, and he could only stare as it came to a stop a few paces away and shifted into his godfather.

"Harry? Are you all right?"

"Sirius!"

Harry threw himself at the man and wrapped his arms around him, only the barest thought going to keeping his wand pointed away from them. "God. _Sirius_."

He clung as tightly as he ever had to any hope, his eyes closed against fear of tears, breathing in the scents that clung to his godfather's shoulder-length hair.

"Harry," Sirius said urgently, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Harry said, without thinking. For a moment, at least, it was true.

"Don't even try it," Sirius retorted. "The last time you clung to me like this, someone had died. And I'm here early because Hermione's message said there was a problem." He shifted, and his hands went to Harry's shoulders, moving him away while still holding on. "Where is she?" he asked.

Harry shook his head. "I don't know," he said awkwardly.

"She's missing?"

"Not -- just when I woke up, she wasn't around. Just now."

Sirius frowned, his brow creasing with thought. "And who died?" he asked wryly. Harry watched each shift in his expression raptly, drinking him in. This, he thought, was Sirius as he might have been -- as dependable as he was loyal.

"You," he breathed. Realizing what he'd said, he shook his head. "I'm sorry. I must sound mad. It's a long story."

"Let's go inside then," Sirius returned grimly. "You're having false visions again?"

"No, not real--"

"Harry, I am _not_ dead."

"I know, but-- Look, let's find Hermione first, okay?" Harry pleaded, as he ducked under the door flap. "I don't want to explain this twice."

"Explain what twice?" Hermione asked tightly. She was standing in the entrance to her room, arms folded and wand in hand.

"Hermione!" Harry exclaimed. He took a step towards her, but stopped when her stance didn't soften. "Where have you been?"

"In my room."

"I looked!"

"I...." She looked at Harry. Sirius stepped forward to lay a hand on Harry's shoulder. Hermione swallowed. "You're not that Slytherin, are you?" Her voice was strong, if not steady.

Harry sighed. "No," he said. "I'm not."

"But you're not my Harry."

"No." He bit his lip. "I think we're getting close, though. This is at least the Forest of Dean, and we're friends, right?"

"Right," she nodded. "Do you know what we're doing here?"

"Looking for Horcruxes."

"Good." She relaxed and took a step forward. "I was using your cloak. The last one didn't know about it."

"The 'sterilize Muggles to protect the environment' one?"

"Exactly."

"Er ... someone care to fill me in?" Sirius interrupted.

"I...." Harry took a deep breath and turned to face him. "I'm not the Harry you know. I ... I started a chain of timeline hops -- I mean, I went into some other Harry's place, and that one went somewhere else, and then when I tried to go home, I went to the place he had been, which wasn't home--"

"He's the third one!" Hermione said. "And the other two were Slytherins!"

"The last one wasn't bad, though," Harry protested. "I mean, in the last place I was in, that version of me was a Slytherin, but didn't seem to be a dangerous bigot."

"You mean my godson is out there somewhere?" Sirius snarled, waving a hand out at the world. "Possibly in danger? And what do you mean, _you_ started it?"

"I..." Harry hesitated. He didn't want Sirius angry at him, but he needed to confess. "I lost my temper."

"And?" his godfather asked, arms crossed.

"I was doing something with Godric Gryffindor's sword, and I swung it at a tree and wished I'd never heard of Horcruxes. And this nymph or something came out of the tree, and she didn't make me forget them, but I think she sent me into the life of someone who didn't know about them."

"But you remembered."

"Yes. And I had to live with Draco and Snape and Lucius, as someone Snape had raised from his eleventh birthday, and who was a complete _bastard_." He sucked in a breath. "Sorry," he said to Hermione.

"Having spent several days with the person in question," she said, "I won't dispute your language."

"I'm still feeling a little lost," Sirius said pointedly.

"Oh. Um -- so I was sent into another world," Harry said. "And the people there tried to send me back, but I ended up in _another_ other world. From that world, they sent me on to this one--" He glanced at Hermione. "I gather I was at least a Gryffindor here, since you and I are friends?"

"Yes," she said, and he nodded.

"Good. I think I must be really close. I mean, it can't be too many worlds in which it's you and me living in a tent in winter."

"So, what's different here?" she asked. He bit his lip.

"Sirius."

"He's different?"

"He's alive."

"Oh," Sirius said suddenly. He cleared his throat. "And thus...."

"Yeah." Harry had to lean against him again, to breathe in his scent. "You died when I was fifteen. I barely knew you."

His godfather's arm came around him in fierce comfort. Harry leaned into it. "It was my fault," he confessed. "Mostly."

"Oh?" Sirius asked skepticly.

"I fell for a trap," Harry confessed. "From ... _Him._ And you were one of the people who came to rescue me and my friends."

Sirius was silent for a little while. "Hm," he said finally. "Yeah, a fifteen-year-old being taken in by a Dark Lord. That's pretty unforgivable, all right."

Harry held onto him and cried, as he hadn't since Dumbledore's death.

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

"You?" Draco asked incredulously. "I didn't think you _could_ cry. Even when you fainted from the Dementors you didn't. It used to be my _life's ambition_ to make you cry."

"Well, that's the thing," Harry said. "I usually don't. I usually _can't_. I think I was probably trained out of it by the Dursleys ignoring me or punishing me, although I don't remember that. I did cry, a little, over Dumbledore, after... when I was by his body, and-- but never for Sirius. First I felt too angry, and then too..." Harry swallowed. "Too guilty, or something. So it was finally ... finally crying for Sirius."

He shrugged awkwardly. "Not a lot, or anything.

"Anyway, I really _needed_ to talk to Sirius. It was wonderful and terrible both, but I wanted to spend every moment with him, that first day. Of course, _his_ Harry was the one who had offered you asylum, so last summer, after Dumbledore died, that Draco had come to live with them. I gathered he was already Harry Three's lover, by then, so that must have happened quickly."

"Mm. You were holding me in silent comfort while I gathered my composure, and the firm warmth of my body against yours overwhelmed your senses and eroded your self control...."

Harry choked. He was sure he couldn't force out such a thing without dissolving into laughter, but it nonetheless called up an image that was making part of his body firm indeed.

"What?" Draco challenged. "Doesn't Granger-- No, actually, I suppose she doesn't read _novels_ at all, much less that sort. Pansy does."

"And you borrow them?" Harry asked incredulously. He had seen Parkinson with books that had kissing people on the covers, but he had always assumed they stayed... well, _kissy_.

His face turning pink, Draco shrugged. "If I'm feeling especially overwhelmed."

"Ah," Harry answered. "I'd wondered where you learned to write like that." He gave Draco a teasing look. " _I_ think that it was when your parents left for their safe haven in Argentina. In a burst of gratitude, you flung your arms around me and gave me a kiss, and it was far hotter than you'd planned, or I would've expected." Despite his words, he tried not to think about kissing the young man in front of him. Draco, having relaxed at his light tone, smirked back at him.

"Not a bad first try," he said, "but what would you know about how I write?"

"Well, the you in the world with Sirius," Harry corrected. "Draco Three. His split with you wasn't that far back. I never met that Draco, but I read his letters to my counterpart."

"Harry!" Draco exclaimed in mock horror. "How dishonorable of you! Nosing about in someone else's correspondence?"

"Well, it was practically to me," Harry protested.

"Where was he, there?" Draco asked, ignoring him. "Not in your tent, I gather. Hidden somewhere else?"

"He was still living with Sirius," Harry explained. "Sirius had his house under a new Fidelus charm by the time the Ministry fell, so Harry Three could have stayed there too, but the neighborhood was under heavy surveillance, so he did pretty much what I did, but with more preparation. Sirius is hard to keep track of as an animagus, and he had already been trying to teach that to Harry Three and Draco Three, who got it after Harry Three left. He and Sirius would regularly visit that Hermione and Harry with information and supplies. Apparently, if it had been the next week, _Draco_ would have checked on the camp."

"Are you sorry he didn't?" Draco asked suggestively.

"I suspect I would have enjoyed it, but no. Seeing Sirius again...."

Draco nodded apologetically. "Yes, of course."

"So," Harry said, swallowing, "I wasn't in as much of a hurry as I should have been. Unfortunately, _that_ was the time my Hermione was dealing with Harry One...."

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

By now, Hermione recognized the moment of disorientation that indicated Harry had changed. She broke off her explanation of the spell she was considering in mid-sentence. There was no point, when the transfer had already been triggered. She felt a momentary surge of irritation at someone else getting to it faster _again_ , but quickly reminded herself that in at least her previous visitor's universe, Harry's friends had access to a library.

"Hi," she said, as the newcomer began to focus.

His lips curled in an unfamiliar sneer. "Granger," he said shortly. With a disgusted air, he surveyed the tent around them. "So. I take it my counterpart in this world is another Muggle-coddling masochist?"

She choked. "Excuse me?"

That sneer turned back to her. "It's not as if I don't know what they're like," he said. "Apparently, if one loses all self-respect young enough, that doesn't matter."

" _My_ Harry--"

"Associates with _you_ ," he interrupted. "And if you had forsworn your birth family and become the witch you ought to be, that would be acceptable. _However_ , as you and he are living in a _tent_ , I must assume that you did not, and you have instead ignored the wisdom of your betters and opposed the traditions of a society which you should honor, and so earned the enmity of the reborn Dark Lord."

Hermione knew she should be enraged, but her anger was trapped behind shock, like a shark under ice.

"You're insane," she said softly. "How could you possibly be Harry?"

"I am _quite_ sane," he retorted. "Sane enough to know what culture I belong in, and to nurture it, rather than destroying it from within, like a worm in an oak."

He raised his head, shaking his fringe back from his scar. "Be off! Hide in your room, or whatever it is you do. I'll get my own dinner."

 

He did just that. Like the previous Harry, he seemed to know how to hunt; he came back with something that left a bloody stain on the snow where he skinned it, and smelled enticing when it crackled over the fire. However, while the previous Harry had called her over to share in his catch and had bragged cheerfully about his tracking abilities, this one ate alone and ringed his leftovers with protective curses.

She could have broken through them. It would have been easy. Choking down something she had needed to steal from Harry -- any Harry -- would have been close to impossible. She left the meat untouched.

Two days went by, filled with the passive hatred of glares and sneers and dinners that he ate alone in what had been shared space. He hated her, and she hated being near him -- this nasty boy who looked too like her friend -- but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of thinking she had been driven out. She forced herself to spend _some_ time in the outer room, working on her maps or studying the sword of Gryffindor, but while she was out there, she kept her wand loose in her sleeve.

She had the sword laid out on the table tonight, along with a chunk of bark from the tree Harry had struck, and she was trying another run of diagnostic spells on the two in combination. She could see that the sword had Opening magic, and suspected the effort was futile. It was what the sword had _released_ from the tree that had sent Harry away, not what was left.

The current Harry strode through his curtain, winter cloak on and broom in hand.

"Going out?" she asked, as if they were friends. When he looked at her, she wished she had kept her mouth shut.

"Yes," he snarled. "If you had any discernment at all, you'd realize how tedious this life is." He raised his head. "I thought I'd find a girl," he said, raising his eyebrows as if that was a challenge.

Hermione felt her lip rise in disgust. Was she supposed to feel snubbed that he didn't want her? "Oh, you like girls?" she asked sweetly. "The other one said he didn't."

He snorted. "That depends on if they're willing or not, doesn't it?" he asked. "Nothing like panic to tighten up twat."

It took her a moment to understand, but when she did, fury surged through her like a breaking wave. "You," she choked out, dropping her wand into her hand. "Will. Not."

With a contemptuous sniff, he turned away. She raised her wand, but his move had been pretense.

 _"Expelliarmus!"_

She went crashing into the table and down, while her wand flew above it and bounced off the barrier that defined her room. She had a split second to think that he was even more powerful than _her_ Harry, and then he was standing over her.

"I'd take you instead," he said with soft menace, "but I _never_ harm a witch unnecessarily." He looked significantly over to the side. "Your wand, on the other hand.... I don't think you deserve that."

He turned his back to her, apparently thinking her harmless without the wand. Arching up, she reached above her head and seized the hilt of the sword. In one move, she lurched to her feet and at him, swinging wildly. She saw his eyes widen in alarm and his arm come protectively up, even as he fumbled for the wand he had just put away. With a sickening crunch and jerk of her grip, the blade hacked into his arm and then rebounded in a spray of blood. His shriek of pain cut off without warning.

 

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

 

Harry ran his fingers over the side of the letter from Draco. He couldn't decide if it was an invasion of privacy or not to read letters written to another version of himself. He did know that he intended to continue. Draco's prose was as eloquent as his script was beautiful, and Harry needed more -- words of taut fears and sweet desires that enticed him even as they made him feel more deprived, like a starving man reading about a feast.

"Beloved," he read at a whisper, "my visits to your encampment, which I should dread for their danger, I await with longing for the sight of your smile, for the sound of your voice, for the touch of your skin." He rolled on to his side, trying to imagine Draco was there, whispering to him with this hidden sweetness. "I think I must be mad--"

Letter, bed, and room vanished. He was on his knees in the shared space by the tent door, a blade flashing to his side as the point of a sword hit the tent floor, and Hermione, rage and horror mixing on her face, lifted it again.

"Hermione!" he shouted, panicked. "STOP!"

The sword curved and settled. She stared down at him. "Make it good."

"It could be right," he said urgently. " _I_ could be. And at any rate, I just got here," he said.

"Obviously," she asked grimly, "but each one has been worse than the last. House?"

He understood. "Gryffindor. We've been friends since first year. My last name is Potter. Sirius died when I was fifteen. We think Ron is still alive."

Shifting her grip on the sword, she narrowed her eyes. "Who's your boyfriend?"

"Shit."

Oddly, she relaxed at that. "Problem?"

"This isn't my world after all. The last person I was involved with was Ginny Weasley, though I broke up with her before we left."

Smiling, she offered him her free hand. "Welcome home."


	4. The End of the Beginning

"That was it, then, was it?"

Harry laughed slightly. "Yeah. The telling detail of my life was that I wasn't involved with you."

Draco raised his eyebrows suggestively. "I still think you've missed my arse."

"Look, I...." Harry wasn't sure how to explain it if his stories had not. "In four worlds, this is the _only one_ in which we're not lovers. And we weren't just fucking in those other three; we were _close_. We were _friends_. In different ways, even. And I think...." Harry moved his hands through empty air trying to gather something intangible. "There must be _something_ there, right? You and I--" Harry gestured to make it clear that he meant the two of them, specifically, "-- the ones sitting right here -- we must have something to offer each other."

Draco opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Slowly, he nodded. "I understand what you mean, but-- This is more than a little overwhelming. I've learned more about you this evening than I ever knew, I think. It's easier to think about sex."

"I see," Harry teased. "So what you're _really_ saying is that you're curious as to what all these versions of you were getting out of it."

Draco's mouth quirked upward. "Perhaps," he said airily. "Though, you know, with my recent isolation, I might just be feeling deprived."

"Oh, you were getting some at school, were you?" Harry challenged.

"Occasionally."

Harry raised his eyebrows. Draco looked sidelong at him. "That is, er, twice?"

Harry laughed, relieved that his Draco was neither a virgin nor vastly more experienced than he was. He reached a hand out to trace the side of Draco's face, encouraging him to turn towards him, and Draco sighed, just as the Draco two worlds back had sighed when he was ready to drop another layer of pretence.

"Let's try a kiss," Harry urged, already leaning forward.

Draco's lips were chapped from exposure, but they moved against Harry's like they belonged there. Heat flowed out from the touch, melting all of Harry's suppositions. He understood, now, about the second Draco kissing him to test his identity. This Draco did not kiss with the confidence of the first, or the cool craft of the second, but with his own blend of hesitation and desire.

He probably wouldn't fuck like them either, Harry realized, in a burst of heat. He told the errant thought to back off. He couldn't push Draco now -- it wouldn't be fair. Consciously choosing the sensual over the sexual, he slipped a hand behind Draco's neck, sliding his fingers under tattered hair, and Draco moaned into his mouth, shifting closer, so that his knee overlay Harry's thigh. Harry pulled back.

"Look," he said shakily. "I know we went through this before, but this isn't an obligation. You can live here until your trial, not letting me touch you, and I'll still treat you well, and it won't change my testimony in either case, and--"

"Fine," Draco snapped. "You're disgustingly honorable and all of that. I believe you. Since that was the _best_ kiss I've ever had _in all my life_ , might we please consider the matter closed, and get ba--"

Harry muffled the end of the request with his mouth, and that quick tongue switched to greeting his own. Against his chest, Draco's body relaxed, and Harry leaned back. Soon they were stretched out on the couch, Draco lying half on top of him, canted just enough to the side for Harry to fumble at his buttons with some hope of success. He was derailed by a warm hand suddenly gripping his cock through his jeans.

"Bed," Draco growled, squeezing in emphasis, and then letting go. "Now. I may be desperate, but I refuse to be ridiculous. We _are_ out of school, are we not?"

Harry laughed as he tumbled back off the sofa and to his feet. "Yeah," he said, holding out a hand to Draco. "I have my own place, with a private bedroom and everything."

They stumbled into the bedroom and onto the bed with Harry holding on to Draco's hand as if he might otherwise be drawn away to another world again. On the bed, he finally got Draco's shirt open, and was able to stroke the clean lines of his chest and pinch his small, pale nipples larger and pinker. Suddenly, fabric blocked his view as Draco pulled his t-shirt up.

"Oi!"

"Just getting this off."

Harry relented and let Draco pull the garment off of him, but as soon as it was clear, he brought his mouth down to where his hand had been, drawing his tongue along the subtle curve of one pectoral muscle, over nearly invisible fine hairs, and up to the sharp line of a collarbone, sucking at the skin there. Draco gasped and twisted under him. One hand gripped Harry's shoulder, but the other explored his broader chest.

"I have no muscle at all, do I?" he said nervously. "There's not much to do in prison."

"S'alright," Harry murmured into Draco's skin. "If I wanted a Beater, I'd have one by now."

"Do you still play?" Draco asked, even as his hand reached lower.

"A bit," Harry admitted. "The Tornados want me as a reserve, next year, so they let me in on practices." He nipped, making Draco yelp and then pant. _Good, then._ "And there are always pick-up games at the Burrow."

"What's the Burrow?" Draco asked, stroking along Harry's hip. "A club?"

"What? Oh, no -- the Weasley family home."

"They have a pitch, now?" Draco asked, his hand stopping.

Harry snorted. "They live out in the country, prat! Agree on the borders, transfigure some rings if you want them, and you're good. The _broom_ 's the only part that needs money."

"Oh," Draco said. He sounded lost, and his hand still lay motionless on Harry's thigh. Harry gave up on kissing him in favor of coming up on one arm to get a better look at his face. Draco was staring past him at the floo screen as if it were exotic, rather than a standard Wizard furnishing.

"Hey," Harry said gently. "We've got each other half-naked in my bed. Why are you worrying about the Weasleys?"

"I...." For a moment, Draco looked as if he was trying very hard to say something, but then he shrugged. "You're right. It's foolish." Before Harry could formulate a question, Draco had finally brought his hand to Harry's cock. With the first stroke, Harry's mind cleared of everything but absorbing every bit of Draco's touch. After a few blissful seconds, he recovered enough awareness to touch Draco back. It felt almost as good to draw his hand up the hard length of Draco's erection.

"You're so hot," he whispered. "May I...?" He didn't finish the question, but instead nudged Draco onto his back, and began to kiss down his body. Draco moaned.

"Unless you're much more twisted than I thought," he said, "I think the answer is yes."

Harry reached Draco's cock and ran his open mouth up the velvet skin, listening in satisfaction to Draco's quick exhale and following moan. Hands touched his head and left, only to return again, clenching in his hair as he took the hard length in his mouth.

"Merlin, Potter!"

Harry chuckled around the obstruction. Wrapping his hand around it, he lifted his head.

"What did you call me?"

"Harry," Draco corrected. "Harry, please go back to that. I'll call you any damn thing you please -- Your Highness, Lord Hero of the Realm, Snookums, whatever you want."

Harry laughed. "Harry will do," he said smugly, and after a few transitional licks, went back to sucking Draco's cock, keeping his hand in place for a few tighter pumps.

After a few minutes of wet noises and happy moans, Draco's thighs tightened under his arms. "Circe!" Draco exclaimed. "Harry, I'm not going to last long. I haven't been-- If you want to fuck me while I'm hard--"

The image was too much for both of them. Harry moved in, taking Draco to the root, and Draco wailed and began to jerk forward in small, uncontrollable motions until Harry had to let up to not be choked by his release. He swallowed, and soothed the bitterness with long, slow licks while Draco lay limp and panting. When Draco's breathing began to even out, he moved back up to lie beside him.

"Mm." Draco kissed him, long and deep. "If this is an attempt to encourage my cooperation with the terms of my probation, I should tell you that it's quite likely to succeed."

Harry, dizzy with arousal, managed a smile. "Nothing so planned."

"Ah. Well, then, perhaps I won't enquire as to your pleasure."

Before Harry had worked that out, he was on his back with Draco straddling one of his calves while he attended to Harry's cock.  He didn't, Harry discovered, have quite the technique of either Draco One or Draco Two. That made him reassuringly his own person. Remembering his lessons under Draco One, Harry thought he could enjoy directing Draco as he evolved a style, but for today, it was far too late for that. Already aching with sustained arousal, he went from pleasure to peak in minutes, release crackling through his body like lightning and leaving him limp under the smug smile of his new lover.

 

When the floo crackled, Harry was glad of the traditional privacy screen that stood between the grate and his bed. He took a moment to assure himself that the frame was glowing red -- indicating that the charmed glass was opaque from the other side -- and to clear his throat with a sip of the water sitting by the bed. It had been Draco's, but that hardly seemed to matter after the time they had spent kissing. Had they fallen asleep after sex? He wasn't quite sure if he had dozed off or not.

"Harry?" his caller queried.

Harry looked over at Draco, who was staring, eyes wide, at the dark face in the fire.

"Hi, Kingsley," Harry answered, trying to sound ready for business. "Problem?"

"Not necessarily." Kingsley's head tilted to the side. "I know it's late, but I finally worked down to the notification of the Malfoy boy's release into your custody this morning, and I just wanted to make sure he hadn't done you in."

Draco clapped his hand over his mouth to hold in a laugh, while Harry tried to keep his own to a light, mature chuckle, rather than schoolboy sniggering.

"Oh, you know me, Kingsley," he said casually, forcing himself to composure as his eyes locked on Draco. "I can give as good as I get."

Draco rolled face-down into the pillow, where he shuddered with laughter, giving Harry the opportunity to grope his arse. Harry took it immediately. He _had_ slept for a while, he decided, as his cock displayed an interest.

"Want me to get dressed and come out and show you?" he offered, even while he stroked down the firm curve of one cheek. Draco demonstrated his enjoyment by rocking against the mattress, and Harry found himself up on his knees over him, Draco's moving arse in a two-hand hold. He squeezed the cheeks together and then let them part, stroking his thumbs down between them. Draco writhed under his thighs.

"No need!" Kingsley said jovially, smiling like he was in a photograph. Harry supposed it was rather like that, talking to the screen. "I'll stop by in the morning, and you can update me then. It can't hurt to make it clear how thoroughly fucked he will be if he harms you."

"Don't overdo it," Harry warned. "He's been eager to cooperate."

"As the one with Auror experience, I'll draw my own conclusions, thank you," Kingsley said, tempering the words with a smile. "Good night, Harry."

"Good night, Minister."

As soon as the flames died, Harry let go to drop forward on his hands, rubbing his hard cock along the cleft of Draco's arse.

"I think I like the thought of you thoroughly fucked," he whispered in Draco's ear. "In the better, literal sense, of course."

Draco turned his head to the side, so Harry could see part of his face. "Merlin, yes," he moaned. " _Absolutely_ eager to cooperate."

"Oh yes," Harry said, pushing back up so he could return one of his thumbs to exploring Malfoy's crack. With the other, he fumbled for lube in the bedside drawer, found it, and got a squirt out, glad of the convenience of dispensing charms. "Much better for both of us, I think." Perhaps in agreement, Draco pushed back on his now-lubed thumb. Harry growled and twisted it in.

"I see you can cooperate too," Draco teased.

"If I feel like it."

"Then that's one thing we have in common."

"Point taken," Harry said, replacing the thumb with two fingers. "God, you're tight."

"I've only done this once," Draco said. "And that was a while ago. I haven't even been playing with myself, you know, between sanitation concerns and lack of privacy....."

His voice started to rise with tension. "Hush," Harry whispered, leaning down. "You're safe here."

"Yes," Draco said, but for the first time since Harry's mention of the Weasleys, he sounded unhappy. Reining in the selfish urge to fuck Draco _now_ and talk later, Harry sat up and stroked down Draco's back.

"What's wrong?"

"I.... Am I like them? The others?"

Harry continued to touch him while he thought. "Here and there," he answered, "but not much, really. I expect if I had met Draco Three, he'd be more like you, but even then... I mean, you just mentioned Azkaban. You went through that. You endured months of serving Voldemort, and you were in the thick of the Battle of Hogwarts. You didn't get away from the whole mess and live with your lover and his guardian and learn how to be an arctic fox."

"A fox?" Draco said, sounding charmed. He gave a little wriggle under Harry.

"So I've heard. Has anyone ever told you you're easily distracted?"

"Mm. Not as much as you think. Harry...."

"You're not a substitute, okay?"

"Thank you." Draco hesitated. "So what am I?"

Harry wondered if he should move off of Draco and lie down where they could see each other's faces. Draco, though, might just keep his face hidden in the sheets.

"I hope you'll be my lover and a friend," he answered hesitantly. "But I can't really say, yet. You're right that we don't know each other well, and I hadn't actually intended to jump right into bed, to be honest. Do you want to slow down?"

Something at the back of his mind was growling at the thought of following through with that offer. He was still hard, and Draco's tight arse was smeared with lube and _right there_.

"Not ... not really," Draco confessed, finally turning his head to the side, so Harry could see a crescent of his face. "But I think it will be miserable, tomorrow, pretending none of this happened, while the Minister is here."

 _Oh._ Harry thought he understood what Draco was getting at.

"We had better do, though," he answered, "or he'll chew me out for taking advantage, and he'll move you, maybe back to prison." That little bit of face wrinkled miserably. "On the other hand, I think we'll be able to get away with it after a few weeks, as long as it looks mutual -- I mean, if we've become close enough, and look it."

Draco twisted under him, and Harry lifted up to let him roll over, which made his erection bob ridiculously. Draco was smiling, now, which Harry took as confirmation that his guess had been right. When Draco tugged, he moved down for a kiss.

"Thank you," Draco said. "I'd like to try being your lover. I don't, though, want to be anyone's secret."

"I wouldn't expect it of you," Harry said, smiling. "Slytherin or not, you're not very secretive."

"I was during my sixth year."

"Case in point. You were also miserable."

"Aren't you supposed to be fucking me?" Draco said haughtily, and Harry laughed.

"I'm not the one who had a crisis in the middle of getting there." As Draco started to frown, he soothed the words with a little kiss. "No offense. I'd be a screaming wreck after two months in Azkaban. Ask for whatever you need."

"Please, then, go back to what you were doing." Draco hesitated. "Will it work with me, er, like this?"

"It can." Harry considered positions that Draco One had introduced him to. On their sides might be even easier than having Draco up on his knees, but.... "Do you want to be facing me?" he asked, "or just to not be face down?"

"Facing you," Draco said quickly. "Please."

"And you've only done this once," Harry thought aloud. He wasn't sure how flexible Draco was. After two months in Azkaban, probably not as much as he should be. "Okay," he said, backing away to the edge of the bed. Draco reached for him in what looked like panic, and Harry caught his hand and held it. "Come to the edge of the bed," he urged, tugging. "It will be easier if I'm standing, I think."

Draco's eyes widened, but he scrambled down, crossing his ankles behind Harry's back. "This feels terribly dirty," he confided, but rather as if he liked the idea. Harry laughed. He worked his fingers back into Draco's arse and enjoyed watching Draco's eyes flutter closed.

"Oh, it should," he replied. "You're laid out for me beautifully. No claiming we just got carried away."

He continued to push and twist, until the grip around his fingers gradually eased. "Lie still, now." Leaning over, Harry reached for his clothes and pulled out his wand. At the current height of the bed, he'd be on his toes the whole time. "I'm going to bring this down a few inches."

When the bed dropped, Draco let out a little cry, but then laughed. "That felt odd."

"Yeah?" Harry asked. He rocked forward, pressing the side of his cock against Draco's arse. "And this?"

"Mm. Good."

Harry took himself in hand and centered the head at Draco's hole. "And this?" he asked, slowly pushing harder.

"Fuck." Draco's eyes closed again, and his neck lengthened as he stretched his head back. "Just.... More. A little more."

"I'll be good," Harry promised. His self-control already felt stretched taut, but he was determined to manage as much as Draco needed. He pushed slowly, squeezing the tip of his cock into that tight ring of muscle. Draco's eyes opened wide, pleading for something unspecified.

"All right?" Harry asked, reaching for the lube. Draco nodded tightly.

"Better than last time."

"Really? It shouldn't really _hurt_ , you know."

"Says the Gryffindor."

"Said my first lover," Harry parried, not needing to remind Draco who that was. "Lie back, okay? And put your feet up on my shoulders, so you can relax your thighs." Helpfully, he curled an arm around one calf, stabilizing the leg. "Now, breathe."

"Breathe?"

"Yeah." Harry drew out a fraction of an inch and added more lube. "Take a long breath in. When you let it out, think of breathing out tension, so all your muscles relax as the air leaves you. It helps, really." He watched Draco try that once. "Good. Now again." This time, as Draco exhaled, Harry pushed slowly forward, getting further in.

"Is that it?"

"Hardly." Harry stroked his thumb firmly down the sole of Draco's foot. "Again. Breathe."

"Oh," Draco sighed, as Harry pushed in further. His eyes were wide again, but his mouth wasn't tight. "Is that in?"

"Pretty much. Not deep, but about full width."

"Oh."

Draco sounded a little surprised. He would ask later, Harry decided -- for now, he needed to move. He kept the first push slow, Draco's tight grip a torturous delight.

"Merlin," Draco muttered. "More."

Harry drew out to go in again, and this time, Draco moved into the push.

"Good?"

"Yes." Draco rocked in, using his heels to lift himself up. Harry grinned and thrust faster, getting an easier slide. He had ignored Draco's cock while he needed him to relax, but now he reached down and took it in his lube-slick hand. The half-soft shaft stiffened as he slid a loose grip up and down it in time to his thrusts. His control, now loosened, began to tumble down like a landslide from their combined pleasure. Draco, fortunately, responded happily to faster and harder, requiring no check. In short order, he was climaxing hard, and Draco wailed and followed.

 

Harry crawled woozily onto the bed, nudging Draco back and collapsing beside him. For a minute or two, they lay there in silence. It was Draco who moved first, shifting restlessly a few times, and then pushing up on one hand. Before Harry could ask, he had caught at the covers and was drawing them over their legs.

"Cold?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Draco said petulantly, but then he laughed, lying back down on his side, bringing the covers up over his thin shoulder. "In a trivial sense."

Harry remembered the chilling sea air in Azkaban. In a surge of protectiveness, he curled around Draco. "I'll keep you warm."

Draco pressed back into him. "I thought I'd never be warm again," he confessed softly.

"You're safe," Harry whispered, making it a promise.

"I think...." Draco twisted back for a kiss. He settled again. "I think I'll believe that." His voice dropped still further. "I think this might even become ... more."

Harry ran his mouth over Draco's neck, and up to the graceful curves of his ear. "I have had every indication that it will."


End file.
